[UPDATE] "Leaps of Faith: Mania Meets Modernity" SAMLA Nov 6-8 2009

full name / name of organization:

Stephen Gallagher

contact email:

jeng_steveg@hotmail.com

This panel will interrogate the upsurge of the new(?) homicidal/suicidal religiosity in the West. Possible perspectives are political, sociological, activist, and philosophical. Approaches can cover the full range from critical analysis to prescriptions for action action. Some possible ideas, not intended to restrict ideas but to spur thinking on a few possible approaches:

- the suicide bomber as Kierkegaardian hero
- religious mania as a reaction to/ byproduct of Western modernity
- leaps of technological faith: the new high-tech cargo cults (Heaven's Gate, etc)
- the faith of Abraham vs the faith of Andrea Yates
- when religion comes to power: implications from the Taliban to the Christian Right